John Malcolm (loyalist)

John Malcolm (died 1788) was a British customs official in Boston who was the victim of the most publicized tarring and feathering incident of the American Revolution in 1774.

Biography
John Malcolm was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and he served in the British Army before becoming a customs collector. He was a staunch supporter of royal authority, and he travelled to North Carolina to help crush the Regulators' uprising. In November 1773, he was tarred and feathered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but the tar and feathers were applied while he was still fully clothed. On 25 January 1774, he knocked out a Patriot shoemaker during an altercation caused by Malcolm's threat to hit a boy with his cane, leading to a crowd seizing Malcolm from his house that night. The crowd proceeded to strip him naked, tar and feather him, and threaten to hang him and cut his ears off until he apologized for his crimes. He then traveled to England and launched a failed campaign for [[Parliament], and he died in 1788.